Does climate determine energy policy or is it the other way round? Where is climate policy headed post Copenhagen, and whose security does this impact and how? These were some of the questions debated by researchers and policymakers participating at the annual conference of the ECC-Platform, which was jointly organised by Adelphi Research, Germanwatch and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin on  January 25, 2010. The participants concluded that the Copenhagen failure was a result of the huge ideological differences between key negotiating partners such as the USA and China. The EU and Denmark, who chaired the summit, were not in a position to bridge these extremes. The prospects of a binding agreement were deemed bleak even for 2010. Consequently, the focus needs to be on implementing and strengthening existing agreements and local initiatives.



The pressure to act is immense. Even today climate change is impacting the security and stability of several countries. States that are fragile and have a background of conflict tend to be particularly hard hit by climate change. The participants suggested that development cooperation activities should focus more on such conflict regions to combat threats to security. One of the contentious issues under discussion was the danger that security policy will dictate the agenda for development and climate policies, and favour a militarisation in these areas. Broad-based approaches focusing on crisis and conflict prevention can, however, counter this trend. Additionally, at the EU level the issue should be integrated as a strategic foreign policy component within the requisite institutional framework rather than being left to informal steering groups.



According to the conference participants, there is no institutional framework that adequately reflects the interaction between energy and climate policies. Emission reduction commitments that result from climate policy will inevitably influence energy policy. In an ideal scenario, sustainable transformation processes would drastically decrease the dependence on fossil fuels. However, the pipelines and coal-based thermal power plants that are built today hardly reflect these climate policy objectives. Yet they will determine the type of energy supplied over decades. The participants concluded that energy security and climate protection must therefore be integrated through a systematic dialogue on energy infrastructure. One option would be to set up an Enquete Commission: such a commission is normally established by the German Parliament and comprises members of all parties as well as experts in order to jointly develop recommendations for a specific issue area - an approach that has so far worked well in Germany. But international climate policy cannot afford to wait that long. The EU must recapture its leadership role and undertake confidence building measures. One way of achieving this would be to set ambitious and binding greenhouse gas reduction and energy efficiency targets of 30 percent for the year 2020. Only this would lend the EU credibility and send out the right signals for the future direction of global energy and climate policies. (Christiane Roettger)



Further information (in German) on the conference "Are Global Climate and Energy Security Policies at a Crossroads?" is available at: http://krium.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1996%3Averanstaltung-qglobale-klima-und-energiesicherheitspolitik-am-scheidewegq&catid=102&Itemid=95

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, February 2010